{"id":2395,"date":"2018-05-01T06:12:28","date_gmt":"2018-05-01T14:12:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/?p=2395"},"modified":"2018-05-01T06:12:28","modified_gmt":"2018-05-01T14:12:28","slug":"ashevilles-glory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/ashevilles-glory\/","title":{"rendered":"Asheville’s Glory"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Phlox<\/a>
Phlox in all colors adorn front gardens in Asheville<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Last week I described the wonders of the Biltmore Estate gardens in Asheville, North Carolina.\u00a0 Both formal and naturalized areas are glorious, with beautifully cultivated and maintained landscapes full of specimen trees, shrubs, perennials and annuals.\u00a0 I am quite sure that the moment a petal drops in one of the formal areas; the petal is scooped up and composted.\u00a0 If two petals drop, the annual in question is replaced with a fresh one.\u00a0 Biltmore is, after all, a world-renowned tourist destination.\u00a0 Those tourists pay for and expect to see a certain standard of perfection.\u00a0 As far as I can tell, they will never be disappointed.<\/p>\n

But there is much more to Asheville horticulture than Biltmore.\u00a0 The city of about 89,000 is home to a number of historic neighborhoods, each with its own distinctive character.\u00a0 The trait that links them all is gardens.\u00a0 From the smallest bungalow to the most ornate Queen Anne Victorian, a large number of Asheville homes boast colorful gardens.<\/p>\n

Asheville is located in a valley surrounded by the Blue Ridge Mountains.\u00a0 The \u201cvalley\u201d is far from flat, however, and the city is built on a series of rolling hills.\u00a0 Residential lots are often on uneven ground and many have front retaining walls of either stone or concrete.\u00a0 Residents evidently use the retaining walls as blank canvases.\u00a0 I have never seen so much creeping phlox–Phlox subulata–cascading over concrete in shades of pink, white, blue-purple and purple.\u00a0 After the phlox flowers fade, the evergreen foliage will remain, softening the walls\u2019 edges in all four seasons.\u00a0 Alongside the phlox, I also saw quantities of white Aubrieta or arabis, another popular \u201ccascade\u201d plant.\u00a0 In my experience the lovely, spring-blooming Geranium x cantabrigiense \u2018Biokovo\u2019 will cascade in a polite manner and look good while doing it.<\/p>\n

Many Asheville residents with dry-laid stone walls plant small specimens in the crevices.\u00a0 These also flow down the walls.\u00a0 This pocket-planting technique was used extensively by mid- twentieth century English gardening maven Margery Fish, author of the classic We Made a Garden.\u00a0 <\/em>Mrs. Fish frequently tucked small, hardy geraniums in her crevices.\u00a0 In Asheville, wall gardeners insert additional phlox and forget-me-nots into the spaces between the stones.\u00a0 In my walls at home, I have found that violets work well too.<\/p>\n

Suburban practitioners of Conventional Good Taste rarely trouble themselves with front gardens.\u00a0 They will cover their naked foundations with shrubs\u2014preferably evergreens\u2014to avoid offending the neighbors, and perhaps surround those shrubs with a narrow ribbon of annuals, changed out seasonally.\u00a0 Most CGT front lawns are uninterrupted by flower beds that might distract from the rolling waves of lawn grass.<\/p>\n

In Asheville, the situation is different.\u00a0 Smaller front gardens, especially those in front of the many distinctive bungalows, may have little or no grass and a profusion of flowers, flowering shrubs and other ornamental plants.\u00a0 When I was there, Fothergilla, a shrub in the witch hazel family that bears white, bottlebrush-like flowers, was in bloom everywhere.\u00a0 We also saw a few of the hardier camellias.\u00a0 Late daffodils still bloomed and tulips were making an appearance.\u00a0 Virginia bluebells or Mertensia seemed quite happy in the North Carolina soil, as did Spanish bluebells\u2014Hyacinthoides hispanica.\u00a0 Vertical spaces in large and small gardens were sometimes covered by wisteria, which was beginning its bloom cycle in mid April.\u00a0 The aptly nicknamed Carolina jessamine or Gelsemium sempervirons, a native plant with fragrant, yellow flowers, was blooming with wild abandon on arches and trellises.<\/p>\n

Why the abundant front gardens?\u00a0 In many places the backyards appear to be small or difficult to cultivate because of steep slopes.\u00a0 On some lots, the sunny space may be in the front rather than in back.\u00a0 It might also be that Ashevilleans just like surrounding themselves with color.\u00a0 Their house paint choices often tend towards bright shades that are outside the typical northeasterner\u2019s comfort zone, with lively accent colors on the trim or architectural features.\u00a0 The bed and breakfast where we stayed was a good example, painted vivid mustard yellow with red-orange trim.\u00a0 Needless to say it was ornamented with an inspiring, colorful garden.<\/p>\n

Ashevilleans know that having a front garden is a little like wearing your heart on your sleeve.\u00a0 It takes courage, but makes for a more colorful life.\"Phlox<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week I described the wonders of the Biltmore Estate gardens in Asheville, North Carolina.\u00a0 Both formal and naturalized areas are glorious, with beautifully cultivated and maintained landscapes full of specimen trees, shrubs, perennials and annuals.\u00a0 I am quite sure that the moment a petal drops in one of the formal areas; the petal is … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,2,3,5],"tags":[1856,1851,1858,1857,361,1860,1195,1859],"class_list":["post-2395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-summer","category-winter","tag-asheville","tag-biltmore-estate","tag-fothergilla","tag-front-gardens","tag-phlox-paniculata","tag-rock-gardening","tag-spring-gardens","tag-wall-gardening"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2395"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2398,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2395\/revisions\/2398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}